Atlanta Light Bulbs Leverages BigCommerce to Attract B2B Buyers

How powerful integrations and built-in features helped reduce abandonment revenue by 97%

29%

97%

8,700

YoY increase in orders

reduction in abandoned revenue YoY

products managed in BigCommerce

The Atlanta Light Bulbs Success Story

Atlanta Light Bulbs began selling online in 1999. Adopting ecommerce early gave the brand an edge for nearly two decades, but 3 or 4 years ago, the ecommerce tides began to change.

With more B2B sellers launching an online presence, digital competition took a fierce turn. No longer was ecommerce alone the edge Atlanta Light Bulbs needed to win the sale.

That’s when Doug Root, CEO of Atlanta Light Bulbs, decided the company needed not just an ecommerce presence, but a marketing powerhouse platform to deliver the customer experience millennial B2B buyers expect.

Today, the company is growing online revenue more than 25% YoY –- mainly due to the apps and marketing strength built-in to BigCommerce.

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The Atlanta Light Bulbs Success Story

Atlanta Light Bulbs began selling online in 1999. Adopting ecommerce early gave the brand an edge for nearly two decades, but 3 or 4 years ago, the ecommerce tides began to change.

With more B2B sellers launching an online presence, digital competition took a fierce turn. No longer was ecommerce alone the edge Atlanta Light Bulbs needed to win the sale.

That’s when Doug Root, CEO of Atlanta Light Bulbs, decided the company needed not just an ecommerce presence, but a marketing powerhouse platform to deliver the customer experience millennial B2B buyers expect.

Today, the company is growing online revenue more than 25% YoY –- mainly due to the apps and marketing strength built-in to BigCommerce.

It’s incredibly important that all the systems we use with our ERP work really well with BigCommerce –– and they do.
Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs

Differentiating from the competition with BigCommerce

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We have a traditional business with a sales counter and contractors coming in and out on a daily basis. We also do a lot of wholesale.

But it is our B2B business that is consistently our identifier in the industry.

Three to 4 years ago, we faced some challenges with that differentiator when everybody else decided to get on the internet and start selling. We had to up our game and change with the internet as the world was changing, as more people were going onto the web to buy.

That's when we jumped on the BigCommerce platform. That was about 2 years ago now, and it's been great ever since.

BigCommerce offers more features, lower cost than Magento

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

BigCommerce is affordable and easy to navigate. It has training wheels for us non-technical guys.

Here’s the thing: we’re not a big internet company with a bunch of people working here that just do one thing. We didn’t want to get in the business of building custom software. Our business is selling lights.

With BigCommerce, we were able to launch the site out of the box, quickly customize it to make it our own and begin selling product near immediately.

Plus, when we were launching, we found that there were a lot more people that worked on BigCommerce in terms of development. We were comparing all of the feedback versus a Magento installation, where it was much more difficult and more expensive to do the same stuff BigCommerce gets you without much effort or cost.

With Magento, contractors can just strap you for more money, more money, more money. BigCommerce doesn't work like that.

That was a big thing for us. We're a small business, and BigCommerce has enabled us to grow and become a really well-known player in the lighting market.

BigCommerce’s one-click toolkit producing 25% revenue growth

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

I love the BigCommerce app marketplace. I love that I can go to the marketplace and browse around and think, “Hmm, today I am going to see if they have something new.” There is always something new!

I am always able to find the apps I want to test and try for 30 days free trial to see how I like it.

I would say our apps all together have brought in at least 25% more revenue than when we weren’t using them.

A mobile app for B2B customers

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

That last app, AppMixture, even enabled us to build our own shopping app.

Our customers love it! We're able to give it to our commercial customers, too, set them up, put their favorite products in their phone, and then say, "Here, bam! All you've got to do is order on your phone, and you're ready to go."

Orders just roll in on the BigCommerce platform. It all talks back and forth wonderfully.

Becoming a B2B powerhouse with Profit 21 and BigCommerce

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We use Profit 21 as our ERP system. It’s a big beast of a distribution software. It is the brain of the whole company, and the only system we use. Everything comes into there, and then we use APIs to spit it all back out.

It’s incredibly important that all the systems we use with our ERP work really well with BigCommerce –– and they do. Those integrations and real-time syncs through the APIs have made a hard problem a lot simpler. BigCommerce and Profit 21 talk back and forth seamlessly.

With BigCommerce, we were able to launch the site out of the box, quickly customize it to make it our own and begin selling product near immediately.
Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We found that there were a lot more people that worked on BigCommerce in terms of development. We were comparing all of the feedback versus a Magento installation, where it was much more difficult and more expensive to do the same stuff BigCommerce gets you without much effort or cost.
Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs

Built-in tools plus one-click apps equals B2B success

29%

97%

8,700

YoY increase in orders

reduction in abandoned revenue YoY

products managed in BigCommerce

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

For large orders, you need to get a quote –– and the modern millennial B2B buyer doesn’t want to have to pick up a phone to do that. Today’s B2B buyers just want to get things done –– right then and there.

One of the best apps we found for this is Quote Ninja. Within 90 days of installing that, we processed more than $100,000 in orders.

It’s perfect for B2B buyers, and the millennials.

PriceWaiter caters to new millennial B2B buyers

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We also use PriceWaiter on our product pages –– which lets the buyer name a price. The buyer goes to our site and says, "Hey, I want to buy 50 of these at $2 a piece."

On the backend, we have loaded up all of our pricing rules into the PriceWaiter system. That app knows if we are willing to sell X items for Y dollars –– as long as the order value is above Z.

PriceWaiter auto-calculates all of that on the fly for the B2B buyer so they don’t have to wait to hear back from us. They just get a message that says we’ve accepted their offer, or if the price is too low, we offer them a different deal.

Exit intent offers reduce abandoned cart

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We also use PriceWaiter’s Exit Intent offer pop-up. When a buyer is leaving the page, the app will pop-up a message that says: "Don't leave yet. Make us an offer on this item. Maybe we can work with you!"

The number one thing this helps with is our abandoned cart. We have so many people come and visit the site, but so few order. With PriceWaiter’s pop-up, we can pull a few of those people back because, for them, it just boils down to price.

Combining customers groups and loyalty programs for repeat business

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

We use BigCommerce’s out-of-the-box Customer Groups to give discounts to different groups based on how much they estimate they will spend with us. Our customers will sign up for a “Business Account” and let us know how much they plan to spend each year.

Depending on that answer, we then drop them into various customer groups with percentages off the advertised priced. Then, I put them in a reward program through RewardCamp –– another app.

With RewardCamp, customers get store credits every time they buy something. The RewardCamp backend keeps up with how much each person gets. I don’t have to keep track of anything. Then, when that customer logs in the next time, they can see their store credit and choose to use that on orders. We also send them a monthly email reminding them about their store credit in RewardCamp.

Combining Customer Groups with RewardCamp’s loyalty program has really helped with our loyal B2B buyer who we want to come back and buy over and over again.

Advice for other B2B brands

As told to BigCommerce by Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs.

My advice for other B2B brands is to figure out how to differentiate.

We try to do everything that would make people think, "Oh, it's just easy to do business with these guys.”

Also, find a platform that works the way you need it to. Everything we do on BigCommerce makes us look like we are a much bigger company, and that makes our jobs a whole lot easier. For very little spend and very little time, we can impress customers on our site and continue to differentiate even in an increasingly competitive B2B online market.

BigCommerce and it’s app store are some of our sharpest secret weapons.

Everything we do on BigCommerce makes us look like we are a much bigger company, and that makes our jobs a whole lot easier.
Doug Root, CEO at Atlanta Light Bulbs